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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23282809">Offer Me That Deathless Death</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeteranKlaus/pseuds/VeteranKlaus'>VeteranKlaus</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Cut Me To The Bone [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Umbrella Academy (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Asphyxiation, Beating, Burning, Character Death, Conditioning, Drowning, Humiliation, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Isolation, M/M, Murder, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Nudity, PTSD, Past Prostitution, Psychological Torture, Sensory Deprivation, Starvation, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Threats of Violence, Time Travel, Torture, Waterboarding, Wow this sounds horrific, forced murder, there will be some comfort</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 10:06:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,443</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23282809</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeteranKlaus/pseuds/VeteranKlaus</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Klaus can hear them. He can hear them - his family, just beyond the trunk of the car separating them. He can hear Cha-Cha, too, talking. Telling them things. Things like <i>Klaus is dead, Klaus is gone, maybe, if you're lucky, you can find him before he bleeds out.</i> But he is right there, so close. If he wasn't gagged, if he wasn't exhausted, he would scream.</p><p>Or,</p><p>In which Cha-Cha makes good on her threat to keep Klaus. He makes for a good stress-reliever, and a good tool, and, for the future, a bargaining chip, after all.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dave/Klaus Hargreeves</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Cut Me To The Bone [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1630444</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>79</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>261</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Yikes check the tags, warnings will be put for each chapter.</p><p>cw for non-consensual drug use in this chapter.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Klaus can hear them. He can hear them - his family, just beyond the trunk of the car separating them. He can hear Cha-Cha, too, talking. Telling them things. Things like <em>Klaus is dead, Klaus is gone, maybe, if you're lucky, you can find him before he bleeds out.</em> But he is right there, so close. If he wasn't gagged, if he wasn't exhausted, he would scream.</p><p>He hears yells of outrage, hears gunshots, hears violent wind howl around his cage. All he can do is stare at the darkness in this cramped space around him, his head spinning and body ablaze in constant agony, and he thinks.</p><p>They aren’t giving him back. They used him as bait to lure his family out, and now they’re erasing him.</p><p><em>We left him</em>, she had said. <em>Shot him in the foot and left him in the woods. He couldn’t have gotten far. If you’re quick, you might be able to watch the light leave his eyes. You shouldn’t have expected me to keep a burden around, Five, for no reason other than your sentimental value.</em></p><p>But he isn’t in the woods. He is in the trunk of her car, tied up and gagged and in pain, and for some reason still alive. He doesn’t know why, and when he does horror settles in his guts and he has to force himself not to throw up. Though perhaps choking to death on his own vomit will be a kinder end to him than what Cha-Cha has in store for him.</p><p>She had taunted him with the idea that maybe, just maybe, she might keep him. Keep him as some little punching bag, some stress toy. And she has made the decision to do that. Maybe she’ll keep him until she simply grows bored of his crying and just shoots him one day, puts him out of his misery and dumps his body somewhere, and his siblings will see it on the news and realise what had happened to him, or maybe she’ll keep him for a little longer and at the very last moment, perhaps while he’s on his last legs and struggling to keep his heart beating, she will drag him out and dangle him in front of his siblings as her trump-card to get to Five, or the Apocalypse, or whatever her goal is.</p><p>Either way, Klaus is going to die. It is simply a matter of when.</p><p>He listens to the chaos of his grieving family outside and his head thumps onto the floor of the trunk. His eyes flutter pathetically beneath the tape covering them, and a shiver runs through his tortured body, only jarring new and old wounds and relighting him on fire.</p><p>Ben is saying things. Telling him to do something, to move, to make noise, to get their attention – but he can’t. His entire body hurts so horrifically that willingly moving would only blind him with pain, and he is so tired he can hardly find the energy to do so. Hopelessness settles like anchors in his guts, weighing him down, down, down, and if he moves all that will happen is there will be pain and when Hazel and Cha-Cha take him away again and haul him out the trunk, there will be punishment for acting out, for not cooperating with what they want him to do.</p><p>So Klaus does nothing. He just waits. Listens to the war outside. Listens to the doors of the car open suddenly, two bodies collapsing in, a string of colourful curses that makes him flinch. The car roars into life and then tears down the road, throwing Klaus around in the trunk enough to make him moan pitifully in pain. The car swerves left and right, the tires squeal beneath him, and there is still cursing and yelling from Hazel and Cha-Cha.</p><p>He catches a few words.</p><p>“What the fuck was that-“</p><p>“It was the girl-“</p><p>“They’re all fucking freaks-“</p><p>And then the car swerves and jumps over something, a pothole, maybe, or a bump in the road, and his head hits the floor beneath him and everything stops.</p><p> </p><p>###</p><p> </p><p>He is being carried. His head hangs limply over Hazel’s arms and as consciousness returns gradually to him, he has to fight the urge to try and lift it. Instead, he takes the moment to try and ground himself as much as he can without the ability to see or to move.</p><p>Hazel has one arm beneath his back and the other beneath his knees. His arms are twisted uncomfortably behind him, still tied together, one of his elbows digging into Hazel’s ribs, and his neck is pulled back by the weight of his own head hanging limply. It is cold; they are outside. He can hear him and Cha-Cha breathing loudly, laboured, and then the sound of a door opening. Warmth envelopes him; they go inside.</p><p>Cha-Cha says, breathily, “Just fucking drop him, he’s still out.”</p><p>Klaus does his best not to tense at that, and, miraculously, he doesn’t even make a sound when Hazel does just that; lowering slightly and then letting Klaus roll out of his arms to crash heavily onto the floor. Most likely because the pain it brings makes him black out and steals all the air from his lungs.</p><p>He is on the floor, still. His leg feels as if it has been torn apart by a shark; it drowns out the rest of the pain from his body. The floor beneath him is hard; wooden slabs that are harsh on his twisted wrists and broken fingers trapped beneath his back.</p><p>“She got you good there,” Hazel says, and he hears a grunt from Cha-Cha.</p><p>“Freak threw us half way down the road. We read her book – she was supposed to be the normal one.”</p><p>“Yeah, well, we got out, just,” Hazel sighs. “And we still have him.”</p><p>He hears a scoff. “I’ve half a mind to just fucking gut him.”</p><p>Another snort, this one from Hazel. “Would probably save us a whole lot of trouble.”</p><p>Cha-Cha sighs. “We’ll get him to spill what he knows. We could still use him – god knows what they’re going to do now.”</p><p>“Our best bet is to probably lay low for a while. If the girl’s around, I don’t think we’ve got much of a chance. We ought to report back. The Handler might want to step in with Five, or she might put us on some other missions for a while.”</p><p>A thoughtful hum. “She better not pull us from it completely.”</p><p>Hazel doesn’t reply immediately. “What about him, then?”</p><p>A pause. “Keep him for now, figure out what he knows. We could still use him against Five – they’ll try and kill us on sight now, but if we have him then they won’t risk it. Too sentimental. We’ll just take him with us.”</p><p>“He’s ass-naked and can’t walk, it’ll be a pain in the ass. Just shoot him now and get it over with.”</p><p>“Are you that dumb? If we don’t have him, we don’t have any leverage. Just set his leg. He doesn’t need to walk <em>well</em>. Set his leg and his fingers, go out and buy a cast, or some shit, and we’ll take him about. Plenty we can do to him without breaking a bone. And, get him some damn underwear.”</p><p>Hazel sighs heavily. “This is bullshit and you know it, Cha-Cha. We don’t keep people.”</p><p>“Well, the Apocalypse is a bit fucking different. Do you want to get tossed about again? If you don’t, I’ll do it.” He hears a floorboard creak, footsteps come closer.</p><p>“Fine, just go fix that up, or go buy that shit and I’ll fix his leg.”</p><p>“Good,” says Cha-Cha, voice firm, and tense silence stretches out around them for several moments. Finally he hears the familiar click of Cha-Cha’s shoes as she walks right by him. He hears the door open, hears her leave, and then hears Hazel groan.</p><p>“Christ,” he mutters, pacing a few times nearby. Klaus remains still and cautious – he is still tied up, still in pain, still blindfolded and gagged, there is little more he can do than just lay there and wait.</p><p>Eventually, Hazel approaches him, and he peels the tape from over his eyes. Klaus forces himself not to flinch.</p><p>He puts a hand on Klaus’ shoulder, rolling him onto his side, and then a knife cuts through the tape on his wrists, freeing them. He pulls them from behind and pulls Klaus once more onto his back, and then he sighs. One of his hands rests on his knee and Klaus tenses, especially when the other goes to his ankle.</p><p>He makes a noise of protest, unable to stop his rising fear, and he looks up with wide-eyes to Hazel, shaking his head rapidly. He is still gagged and he knows why.</p><p>Hazel freezes, almost, almost looking guilty as Klaus tries and fails to pull himself away, tries to plead with him not to hurt him even more. Hazel sighs.</p><p>“I’m sorry, man,” he says, and then he grabs Klaus’ leg and twists it.</p><p>Klaus throws his head back and screams. He tries to shove at Hazel, tries to kick him, tries to pull himself away, but it is futile and Hazel just keeps moving his leg. His bone makes sickening sounds that seem to echo louder than Klaus’ muffled scream and then there is one final twist, one final crunch, and he passes out.</p><p> </p><p>###</p><p> </p><p>When he wakes up, he is still on the floor. He feels as if he has been set on fire; feels as if he still is on fire, just smouldering now, lying on hot coals.</p><p>The gag on his mouth is gone. He isn’t tied down to anything, either. He is simply on the floor. He pries his eyes open and looks forwards. The floor beneath him is wood, hard and cold, but there is a ragged carpet a small distance in front of him. The room smells like takeaway pizza and dust. When he looks over himself, his broken fingers and leg have been cared for. Not professional, exactly, but good enough. They still hurt. Hazel must have done it while he was unconscious.</p><p>“He’s awake.”</p><p>“Took his time.”</p><p>He hears furniture groan as it shifts, and then footsteps. Something drops in front of his face. He doesn’t have the energy to flinch. His mind feels heavy and sluggish with pain; he feels as if he might as well be high.</p><p>“Put those on,” says Cha-Cha. He turns his gaze to what was put in front of him; clothes. A pair of boxers, sweatpants that are too big for him but big enough to fit over the cast on his leg, and a loose t-shirt. Still, it takes him several moments to realise what it is she is telling him to do.</p><p>With his good hand he pushes himself weakly off the floor. His arm nearly buckles under his own weight. He feels sick, sitting upright, and has to take a moment to brace himself. Satisfied that he is doing what she said without question – he isn’t stupid, he knows not to do that – she turns back to her food. It takes him an absurd amount of time to get the clothes on. They are loose on, swallow him whole, and he has to tie the sweatpants on his hips which only takes him even longer. Then, after he is finally done, he simply sits on the floor and wraps his arms around himself, trembling and tired and sore.</p><p>“Hey, Klaus,” murmurs Ben, crouching next to him. “Are you okay? Klaus?”</p><p>Klaus shifts his head slightly in his direction. He doesn’t outwardly reply to him, fears the reaction he might get from Hazel and Cha-Cha if he does that. Instead, he simply forces his eyes open and stares at his brother. Ben grimaces when their eyes meet, nearly flinches a little, and his cheeks heat up in embarrassment. Stupid question.</p><p>He mouths, <em>what happened?</em></p><p>Ben frowns. He looks down at his hands, purses his lips. “They met the others,” he murmurs. “Everyone was there. They tried to get to Five by saying – saying they’d shot you in the woods and left you there. They, uh, everyone freaked out. Vanya… Klaus, I think Vanya actually has powers. She freaked out, and Hazel and Cha-Cha got, like, thrown back by her. They had to run and they brought you back here.” He nods his head in the general direction of Klaus’ leg. “Fixed that, a bit. Cha-Cha went to speak to someone – their boss, I think – but I don’t know what’s happening now.”</p><p>Klaus presses his lips together, eyebrows furrowing. Ben nods. “I know – Vanya, it’s crazy, but I’m serious. Hazel and Cha-Cha were talking about it – they’ll probably talk to you about it. I’ve looked around – there’s a fire escape at the back window, Klaus, if you could-“</p><p>He shakes his head, closing his eyes. He wouldn’t even make it to the window let alone down a fire escape in his condition. Ben makes a noise, running his hands down his face. They both know it is futile.</p><p>He dares to look at them. They are sitting on some old looking couch, with a box of pizza balanced on the coffee table in front of them and a bottle of whiskey uncapped. His stomach makes a greedy noise and he immediately looks away, cheeks red, settling his good hand on it. He isn’t sure how long he’s been with them for but he knows he hasn’t eaten a thing since the day they took him. He’d been too busy being tortured to really think about it but now, sitting down, clothed and dry and warm, he realises how hungry he feels.</p><p>He doesn’t know what to do. It feels wrong to be free – free in the sense that he isn’t tied down to anything or locked in a closet. He feels guilty, just sitting there of his own free will with his own damn captors, but he has already told them things he has never told anyone else, how much worse could he make this for himself?</p><p>He wishes they would say something, or do something. It is unnerving, waiting for it to happen. When will they acknowledge him? Hit him? Hurt him, kill him?</p><p>He could get up and run. There is nothing stopping him from throwing himself at the door to his left, or out of the window in front of him. Only that primal need to survive and the fear of pain from his wounds or the pain from getting caught again. So, instead, he sits. Shoulders hunched, head down, good leg drawn up to himself and the other stretched out in front of him, trying not to move.</p><p>The others think he is dead. They won’t look for him; they’ll have a funeral like Dad’s and argue over it, and then they’ll move on. They won’t even find his body. Diego might drive himself mad trying to find him. And all the while, he will be here, with them.</p><p>There is a sigh. The couch groans; Cha-Cha stands up, begins to walk closer to him. He holds himself in place despite the initial flinch he can’t supress, turning his head away from her like a shy dog, but she comes in front of him and crouches, resting her elbows on her knees. They are both silent for a moment, Klaus willing her to do something and unable to bring himself to look at her. Eventually, though, the tension breaks him and he catches her gaze from the corner of his eyes.</p><p>She just keeps staring at him. Her eyes are cold, unnerving, and make his stomach roll uneasily, but he can’t bring himself to look away from her now. Still, she doesn’t say anything. He hates it. He feels like a deer frozen in headlights.</p><p>“Why won’t you just kill me?” Klaus blurts. His voice is hoarse; quiet. “Why? I-I’ve told you <em>everything</em>.” He’s told her everything she asked for and more; he doesn’t understand why she won’t just get rid of him already.</p><p>She tips her head to the side. “Well, turns out we still have use for you yet,” she says, dropping a hand onto his shoulder. He flinches; face screws up, head ducks and body tenses. “So,” she says, “we’re going to take a step back and let our boss talk some sense into your brother, and we’re going to go take up some other missions and keep you with us.”</p><p>Klaus closes his eyes, exhaling shakily. He doesn’t know what to say to that. How long is he going to be stuck with them for? He turns his head, looking at Ben who looks bad with sad eyes.</p><p>“I’m staying with you,” he tells him. “I’m here.”</p><p>Fingers dig into his jaw, force him to look back at Cha-Cha. “So, we’re gonna head out in a minute,” she continues, and a glance towards Hazel shows he is getting up, gathering a few things before lifting a briefcase onto the table. He looks back to Cha-Cha as she keeps speaking. “And I don’t want to risk you fucking this job up for us, but I’m sure you’ll love the solution I came to.”</p><p>His eyebrows furrow slightly and he watches as she lets go of him, gets up, and fumbles with something in a bag on the coffee table. She plucks a syringe out of the bag and sets it on the table, and then he hears a lighter flick on. Her back is to him and he can’t see what she is doing.</p><p>She picks up the syringe, messes with it, and then she turns and comes back to Klaus’ side. One glance at it lets Klaus know exactly what is in it. He shakes his head in protest, scrambles backwards a little. “No – you don’t – don’t need to do that,” he says, looking between it and her, but he isn’t trying to get away as hard as he could and he knows it. The ghosts are loud, his body is on fire, he is horrifically sober; this would take it all away. But god knows what she and Hazel might do to him while he is unconscious or high as a kite.</p><p>Cha-Cha doesn’t struggle to grab his arm and hold it out, and Klaus knows it is futile to even try to struggle, so he freezes instead. He watches her hold the syringe, rub the crook of his elbow already marred with old track marks, and then she lines the needle up with a vein. Just before she pushes it in, she looks up, smiles thinly at him.</p><p>“How pathetic,” she says. “You aren’t even fighting.”</p><p>Klaus’ cheeks flame hot with shame and he tries to think of a response, but then the needle pierces his skin and she shoves the plunger down fast, too fast, and it feels like being hit by a train and tossed into nothingness almost immediately.</p><p>He feels a hand settle on him, hears voice echo around him, and there is a blinding flash of blue and the sensation of being torn apart atom by atom, free falling through the sky, and then there is absolutely nothing.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Whoops my hands slipped.<br/>I have this story planned out, sorry to the recovery that is being put on hold.<br/>Please keep an eye on the tags and feel free to let me know what you thought!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Warnings for; torture, non-consensual drug use, minor character death.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There is a scratchy purple carpet beneath him. It rubs against his cheek roughly each time he moves, and it is uncomfortable and thin. His heart echoes thunderously loud in his ears, an unsteady rhythm, and he can feel air whistle down his throat and flood his lungs. Something loud is ringing in his ears, too, like a song or the distant murmur of a television.</p><p>It takes him a while to realise it is the sound of screaming.</p><p>Even then, he doesn’t feel surprised, or shocked, or afraid. His eyes roll loose in his skull in an attempt to find the source of the noise, but his eyes are closed and the lull of sleep calls him down again and he lets it.</p><p>The screaming is still there when he wakes up again. He feels only slightly more conscious and coherent than the last time he can remember being awake. The purple carpet remains beneath him, more scratchy than before, and the screaming is clearer than before. This time, it makes his heart skip a beat and he opens his eyes.</p><p>He can’t quite tell where he is. Ugly-coloured walls surround him, there are two beds, curtains drawn over windows. He is sprawled on the floor, half-slumped against a wall. There is a seat, and on that seat is a person; a woman, tied down to it, screaming into a gag as Hazel breaks her finger.</p><p>“Hey,” says Klaus, or he tries to but his tongue feels heavy, dead in his mouth, and he tries to reach forwards and topples over onto the floor. He peels his head off of it after a moment, uses his good arm to prop himself up and drag himself forwards. “Hey, hey – stop – stop it-“</p><p>“Oh, for god’s sake,” Cha-Cha hisses, turning her icy gaze from their new victim to Klaus. Hazel stands a little upright too and the woman in the chair doubles over, sobbing.</p><p>“It’s about time he came around anyway,” Hazel comments, rolling his shoulder back. The woman turns her head slightly, just enough that she can peer out at Klaus with tearful eyes. She looks afraid of him, or maybe for him, or both, and yet also hopeful; as if Klaus might be able to save her. Klaus tries to; he fumbles to push himself up onto his knees, swaying as the world gets dark for a few moments, and then he peels his eyes open again just in time to see Cha-Cha loom over him, a syringe in her hands.</p><p>She picks up his wrist, stretches his arm roughly, and Klaus tries to tug it back pathetically, looking between everyone in the room. “No,” he protests, voice slurred. “No, she’s – she’s hurt-“</p><p>“Yeah,” says Cha-Cha, lining the needle up with one of his veins. “I know, dipshit.” Then she pierces his skin and pushes the plunger down. He doesn’t feel himself hit the floor.</p><p> </p><p>###</p><p> </p><p>Through hazy sight, he thinks he might see the outline of a woman being dragged through an open door that leads to somewhere unknown. He can’t quite tell whether or not the woman is alive or if it is a corpse that is being moved. She does, however, resemble the wavering apparition hovering nearby Klaus, looking lost.</p><p>Shapes return to him gradually. He spends more moments awake than asleep, and then more moments aware than unaware.</p><p>There is blood on the carpet.</p><p>“Have they sent the next order?”</p><p>His eyes flick upwards, landing on Hazel and Cha-Cha. There is blood speckled on the underside of Cha-Cha’s sleeve. He isn’t sure she has noticed. Hazel walks close to Klaus, and Klaus mentally braces himself to be grabbed, but he just simply steps over Klaus as if he isn’t there at all. Klaus can’t find the energy to lift his head off the floor, let alone turn it to keep watching him. He struggles to keep his eyes open at all, but he forces himself to.</p><p>Hazel steps back over him, returning to Cha-Cha.</p><p>“Same city, shouldn’t take us long to find him,” he says, looking down at a piece of paper in his hands before handing it off to Cha-Cha. “Just get it over with, huh?”</p><p>“Yeah, yeah, let’s go.”</p><p>The both of them head towards the door, and then Cha-Cha pauses. She turns almost in slow-motion and then her gaze falls onto Klaus. Too late, he shuts his eyes. He hears her snort and knows he has been caught awake, so he pries his eyes back open to watch her reach for something. When she comes close to him, brandishing a syringe, a moan claws its way out of his mouth.</p><p>“Please,” he says, and he uses his good hand to try and push himself backwards along the floor, away from her, but his back hits a wall. “Please, please, don’t,” he begs, eyes stuck on that needle. He knows his body will burn through it and crave more, but he fears what they might do to him while he’s unconscious, fears being so helpless and vulnerable in front of him. He doesn’t think he’s ever wanted to be sober so suddenly before in his life.</p><p>He truly doesn’t have a choice this time, though. Cha-Cha grabs his arm, her nails digging into his pale skin, and she overpowers him with ease, especially when she says, “if you don’t stop moving, the needle is going in your eye.”</p><p>Klaus freezes almost instantly, ignoring the trembling of his body, and the uncontrollable whimpers and mad pleas tumbling off his lips. He watches Cha-Cha line the needle up on his bruised skin, right above a vein, and then she pushes it through. Just as she pushes the plunger, Klaus looks around and catches Ben’s eyes, sad and helpless. Then his eyelids flutter as euphoria rushes through him and envelops his mind in its heavy embrace, and he is dragged down into it again.</p><p> </p><p>###</p><p> </p><p>When he wakes up and can keep his eyes open, he realises that he is still alone. Hazel and Cha-Cha are not in the room, nor is another one of their victims. They probably haven’t even come back at all yet.</p><p>A moan tumbles off his lips as he lifts his head, trying to seek out his brother. Ben is quick to come into his vision, dropping to his knees in front of Klaus. “Hey,” he says, voice sounding distant. “Hey, I’m here, Klaus, I’m here. It’s just us – they went out, like, just over half an hour ago, and haven’t come back.”</p><p>Klaus blinks, struggling to make sense of Ben’s words through his drug-addled mind, but eventually they click and he nods.</p><p>“They, uh, they have a briefcase, Klaus – a time machine. If you can get it, you can get out, and they can’t come back for you. It’s in the vent, follow me.”</p><p>Klaus watches Ben stand up, though still remaining low to the ground, and then he takes a few steps backwards. Klaus blinks his vision back into clarity, struggling against the heavy hold of sleep, and struggles more to move. He knows he won’t be able to stand up and walk, what with the drugs and the broken leg. The pain is muffled by the drugs, at least, and so he doesn’t feel it so much when he falls onto his front, then props himself up on his forearms and begins to drag himself after Ben.</p><p>The world spins and he finds his head falling multiple times as he nods off, only for it to smack the floor and snap back up. Ben keeps encouraging him on, pleading him to not stop, and he guides him between old-style beds and to a vent. There is a bedside table in front of it, and he ends up just tugging it over onto the floor to shove it out of the way. His lays on the floor in front of the vent, and he can see the briefcase through it, so close to him.</p><p>His head droops. He struggles to lift it back up. Ben’s begging seems so far away, so distant. His head spins and he just wants it to stop. He can hardly remember what he was trying so hard to get, anyway. His fingers numbly, uselessly scratch at the vent. His head hits the floor; snaps back up, delayed. He digs his short nails into the nails holding the vent cover in place, tries to twist them out and loosen them, but he is too uncoordinated to successfully do it.</p><p>His head hits the floor. So does his hand.</p><p> </p><p>###</p><p> </p><p>Cold water hits him like a bus.</p><p>He gasps, jerking half-upright without the real strength to sit up. He splutters, coughing, and blinks against the water trickling down his face.</p><p>Cha-Cha is standing over him, holding a bucket and looking unimpressed. Over her shoulder, Hazel is tying a limp form onto a chair with duct tape. The harsh sound of the tape ripping makes Klaus cringe.</p><p>Cha-Cha sets the bucket aside, reaches down and grabs his arms. Then she steps back, begins to drag him with her, away from the vent that suddenly seems so important, and how could he have fallen asleep like that?</p><p>“No,” Klaus sobs, horrified at the fact that his prime chance at escape has slipped through his fingers. He looks longingly at the vent, shaking his head and blinking away tears. “No, no, no-“</p><p>“Oh, shut up,” Cha-Cha snaps, rolling her eyes at his pathetic sniffling. “You know, I was content to just ignore you for this whole trip, but then you had to go and bring attention back to yourself and now I have to deal with you again. It’s almost like you want my attention.”</p><p>Klaus makes a noise, shaking his head in protest and continuing to utter his litany of no, no, no. She lets go of his arms, dropping him onto the floor against a wall a few feet from the unconscious person Hazel is tending to. It is a young man, probably younger than Klaus, with his shirt and shoes off. It reminds him of himself, in that dark, cold warehouse. At least this place is lit up and warm.</p><p>Klaus presses himself back against the wall, as if he thinks that if he tries hard enough, he can go right through it and hide somewhere else, and watches with wary eyes as Cha-Cha pulls a bag out from beneath a bed and starts going through it. He expects her to drug him at any moment again, but she never comes close, never pulls out a syringe. Klaus isn’t sure what to do with himself now.</p><p>He watches them busy about the man, and Klaus swallows down his nausea when he sees a familiar kit that Cha-Cha pulls out. Garrotte, cigarettes, pliers, a cloth. His heart pounds furiously beneath his ribcage and he looks rapidly between the three of them, and then to Ben, both of their eyes wide. Klaus’ lips part and he struggles to voice his worries. Stupidly, he does.</p><p>“What – what are you doing?” He asks, like an idiot, and receives looks from Hazel and Cha-Cha that tell him they think the same.</p><p>“It’s like you’re trying to get gagged,” Cha-Cha says, shaking her head. Klaus flinches back against the wall, shaking his head again, shaking his head for eternity, until it might fall right off his shoulders. She pauses for a moment, going thoughtful, then she turns to Hazel. “Have you still got that toffee from the office?”</p><p>Hazel digs into his pocket and then tosses a small piece of candy to Cha-Cha, who unwraps it to reveal not a sweet, but a blinking tracker. With her other hand she tugs a phone from her pocket and then seems to sync it up with the tracker, as it beeps multiple times in rapid success and then she tucks her phone aside. Her attention returns to Klaus, watching her warily.</p><p>She swipes a knife out of her kit as she comes close, and then she crouches in front of Klaus. He can’t help but flinch back, hitting his head off the wall. She holds the tracker up between her index finger and her thumb, rolling it slightly. “See this?” She asks, and Klaus blinks. When she holds the knife up in a silent threat instead and so Klaus hurries to nod. “This connects to mine and Hazel’s phone. It’s a tracker. I can see where it is at all times. I really had hope that you were learning how to be obedient, but I guess not. You’re making me do this.”</p><p>Klaus swallows as realisation hits him, his stomach sinking. “No,” he says, shaking his head, eyes wide. “No, no, you don’t – don’t have to do that,” he stammers, but he can’t bring himself to say he won’t try and run away again. Lying only makes her mad, and if he gets a chance like that again and doesn’t succumb to drugs – he abused them for well over a decade, he can function being high, it isn’t an excuse for him to lose such an opportunity for his own freedom – he can’t promise he won’t go for it. Cha-Cha knows this; she smiles almost mockingly.</p><p>“Typically, we usually put it in people’s arm,” she muses, looking at the tracker. “But that’s also typically just as a precaution. We can trust people. The trackers don’t always have to be on. Unless it’s someone like you, Klaus. This is necessary, and it’s always going to be on, and I’m always going to be able to check it. Think of it like… a bit like a chip or a collar for a dog, though most dogs are more obedient than you.” She sighs at that, looking at him with disappointment. She taps his cheek with the point of her knife. “Turn around.”</p><p>Klaus swallows, looking between her, the tracker, the knife, and the unconscious man. Back to Cha-Cha. She quirks an eyebrow impatiently, and Klaus moves with shaky limbs, heavy with reluctance and fear of putting his back to Cha-Cha, but he does so. He stares at the wall, tries to calm his breathing as panic rises up at him.</p><p>The knife digs in to the back of his neck. He almost chokes on his breath at the sensation. The knife digs in deeper and he gasps, resisting the urge to flinch away, to move, to do something, but he simply holds still and lets Cha-Cha cut him. Blood trickles down his neck and he screws his eyes shut; bites his tongue when the knife disappears and something else – the tracker – prods at the entrance to his wound. Cha-Cha pushes the tracker inside and he tastes blood in his mouth.</p><p>“Don’t move,” she snaps at him as she finally stops prodding at the wound, and he doesn’t need to be told it. He stays frozen, listens to the roar of his blood in his ears. Then she returns. Stitches tug his skin closed, sealing the tracker inside his neck, and then she wraps his neck in a thin, new bandage, hiding the stitches.</p><p>She pats his head like one might to a dog when she’s done, returning once more to ignoring him in favour of the other man, and Klaus slumps sideways against the wall. Half in shock, he raises a hand, trembling fingers ghosting over the burning pain in his neck. His breath hitches in his throat and he feels hopelessness unfurl in his chest, blossoming like a violent void. He can go outside, he can run to the opposite side of the world, and they will always find him. He will never be free of them.</p><p>He wonders, faintly, if Cha-Cha’s name is inscribed on the chip like a tag on a dog collar.</p><p> </p><p>###</p><p> </p><p>He watches, silent, frozen, as the man begins to wake up, and then he begins to panic. Hazel and Cha-Cha don their masks and step out in front of him, and Cha-Cha begins her taunting talk; asking for obedience and compliance backed up by the threat that she can gut him before he can scream.</p><p>The man, wide-eyed, nods his head in eager agreement, and she tears the duct tape off his lips and pulls the cloth out his mouth, setting it aside. Hazel picks the bucket up that Cha-Cha had used on him and disappears into the bathroom to fill it up. He hears the water running.</p><p>“This can go one of two ways,” says Cha-Cha, standing in front of him. “The easy way, in which you tell me where I can find the code of the vault at the Dawn estate, or you tell me it after you beg me to listen to you. Your choice.”</p><p>The man’s eyes dance around the place, wild and panicked, and then he sees Klaus, huddled against the wall, dripping water and trembling and bruised. His eyes widen a fraction, turning back to Cha-Cha with more panic, and he shakes his head, stammering.</p><p>“I don’t – I don’t know about the vault, I’m – I just cook, I’m just a cook-“</p><p>Cha-Cha sighs loudly, turning to watch Hazel come out with the bucket of water. She rolls her shoulders back, stands up a little straighter, and tilts her head back to her new victim.</p><p>“I don’t like liars,” she states, and it makes both the man and Klaus flinch.</p><p>Klaus’ mouth feels dry as he watches her fist meet the man’s face, again and again and again until blood is flying. The urge to intervene, to beg her to stop, bubbles up in his chest and fights against the fear he holds for both her and Hazel, and all he does is make a choked sound.</p><p>Is this why they didn’t drug him? So they can make him watch as they beat someone else senseless, knowing he would never do anything to stop it, to help him. Klaus curls his fingers in his wet shirt. Water runs down his elbow. He’s lucky, he thinks, that the majority of the water was on his head; his bandages are still fine. He doesn’t want either Hazel or Cha-Cha to touch his hand or leg ever again, though he knows it’s futile. They will. He won’t be surprised if they tear the bandages off just to re-crush his bones.</p><p>Ben doesn’t even encourage Klaus to do something. He knows it is as useless as Klaus knows it to be. Klaus cannot do a thing, nor does he want to, nor does he think he even can physically do anything. If he yells, they will gag him, and if he stands, he’ll fall over. If he crawls over, they’ll laugh at him and kick his head until he passes out.</p><p>So Klaus watches. He watches Hazel hold the cloth over his mouth and nose, and Cha-Cha pours water over him until he is thrashing, and Klaus knows the way his lungs are burning right now. He watches the thin garrotte bite deep into the flesh of his throat as Hazel pulls it with all his weight, and knows how the man feels like the wire might slice clean through his neck and decapitate him. He watches cigarettes be put out on the man’s torso, watches nails be pulled off, watches him cry and yell and beg and insist he doesn’t know anything, and Klaus knows that feeling, too.</p><p>He can just sit and watch the man get beaten, can only sit as withdrawals rapidly set in with each passing moment; starting with yawns he can’t bite back and sneezes he tries to muffle, and then growing to aches in his muscles and a twisting pain in his stomach. He feels utterly miserable, and despite the desperation to be sober, he also itches for another fix. Just another cruel trick of Cha-Cha’s, he thinks, to keep him doped up into addiction and let him stew in his withdrawals so he can clearly see the way blood glistens in the dim light of the room.</p><p>The man’s breath sticks in his throat as blood bubbles past his lips, dribbling down his chin. His shoulders are hunched in a desperate and useless attempt to make himself smaller, to protect himself.</p><p>“Please,” he wheezes, “please, I don’t – I – please-“</p><p>Cha-Cha hovers over the man, looking thoughtful even with her mask on. She crouches down, resting her elbows on her knees. “Just give me the code to the vault and all of this can be over.”</p><p>The man makes a desperate kind of noise, nearly a sob, and digs his bloody fingers into the arms of the chair. He swallows thickly, multiple times in a row, half-choking on his own blood. “The – the maid, Isabella, she – she has an affair with Sir Colton, she can get into his office – he probably keeps a-a copy of the code in there, okay? That’s it, that’s all, I swear, please-“</p><p>Cha-Cha hums, tilting her head to look at Hazel. She rises to her feet, patting the man on his shoulder and ignoring the way he flinches. “I believe you,” she says, and then she nods to Hazel. “Let’s bring the car closer.”</p><p>Both of them step outside the room, closing the door and leaving Klaus and the restrained man who has begun to weep quietly once more, trembling all over. He lifts his head, staring at the door, and then he turns around and squints at Klaus with swollen eyes.</p><p>“Who – who are you?” He asks, voice worn and desperate. Klaus swallows around his heavy tongue, eyes bouncing anxiously between him and the door, expecting it to be thrown open at any moment. Klaus looks back at the man, his tongue running out over his dry lips.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” he whispers, shaking his head. The man slumps in defeat, as if he thought Klaus might help. He could. He could get up and cut the bindings on his wrists and his ankles, and the man could run outside. Except the man has a broken leg, the same one as Klaus, and he won’t make it far before Hazel and Cha-Cha catch him anyway, and they will both be punished and it will be for nothing.</p><p>The man hangs his head.</p><p>The door opens. Instantly, he turns to look at Hazel and Cha-Cha as they come back in, and Hazel grabs a knife and cuts his bindings.</p><p>“Can – can I go home? Please? I swear, I’ve told you everything, please, I swear, I swear-“</p><p>“Yeah, you’re going home now,” says Cha-Cha, voice deceptively pleasant. The man’s face breaks out in relief and he sobs.</p><p>“Thank you,” he says, smiling, rubbing his raw wrists. “Thank you, thank you, thank-“</p><p>Cha-Cha’s hand dips into her bag and pulls out a gun, a silencer placed onto it. She cuts his sentence off with a bullet between his eyes.</p><p>The man slumps, dead, smile twitching.</p><p>Blood sprays. Klaus feels it splatter against his own skin, on his cheek, his forehead, and he can’t help the horrified, choked scream that leaves his lips. He clamps his hands over his mouth, heart pounding as he watches blood trickle into a bucket that Cha-Cha kicks beneath the corpse, and he’s dead, he’s dead, body still smiling, eyes glazed over with distant hope, and Cha-Cha is coming towards him now, and Klaus can’t breathe, he can’t – can’t-</p><p>“No!” He yells, voice torn, and starts lashing out, nerves alight with fresh fear and horror. He pushes himself flat against the wall, tries to push himself through it, and keeps yelling, keening, gasping, despite how much she orders him to stop. Even when she takes a few steps away, he can’t stop looking at the corpse and crying out noises, as if a switch has suddenly been switched on and he has come suddenly back to life, like Mom, he thinks, and he can’t turn it back off again. His leg burns, his hand throbs, and his neck hurts; everything hurts, and the man is dead, and-</p><p>Cha-Cha grabs his wrist, nearly wrenches his shoulder right out its socket as she pulls his arm straight, and stabs a needle into him. The syringe empties in moments and the yell on Klaus’ tongue gets stuck, as if he has suddenly been gagged or choked, and try as he might, he can’t stop his eyes from rolling back.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>It isn't gonna get much better from here out, boys :(</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Warnings for: drug use, panic attacks.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Fingers grip his jaw; tug it upwards, away from his chest. He moans in protest as the world rocks around him, his eyelids fluttering before peeling open. Hazel is holding his head up. He is sitting on the floor, and when he looks around he sees trees, and grass. Their car is behind him; he is sat against it. His neck throbs painfully with each movement.</p><p>Cha-Cha is beside him, messing with something behind him. He has to resist the urge to lean against her legs for support.</p><p>“Go get him out,” says Cha-Cha, taking a few steps back. From the trunk of the car she lifts two shovels. Hazel lets go of Klaus, disappearing behind him to the car which Klaus slumps against. He struggles to keep his eyelids open as he watches Cha-Cha walk a few metres from him and then begin to dig.</p><p>Then Hazel appears again, something thrown over his shoulder. Someone. Someone wrapped up in a plastic sheet, blood dripping down and splattering the soil, seeping into it. The body of the man they killed earlier. Klaus’ mouth goes dry, although it has been painfully dry for a while now and only getting worse – he can’t remember the last time he drank. It must have been the last time they drowned him and he swallowed water. He has no idea when that was. – and he watches Hazel drop the body with a heavy thud. He watches blood trickle on the plastic sheet wrapping the body, spilling out onto the dark soil.</p><p>Hazel takes the other shovel and begins to help digging. Klaus’ eyes bounce between the body and the hole, watching them dig a shallow grave swiftly, with the kind of efficiency that shows they have obviously done this before. He simply sits, watching them, his body aching and head heavy, and is grateful that he is still too high to be able to see the man’s ghost.</p><p>Ben is there, of course. He refuses to leave his side. Klaus is grateful for his presence, doesn’t want to imagine what it’d be like if he was all utterly alone with Hazel and Cha-Cha, even if Ben can’t really help him. At least he is there.</p><p>Hazel grabs the ankles of the body, dragging it along the dirt until it thuds into the hole, and Klaus expects them to begin to throw the dirt over the body, hide it from sight. Instead, they drop the shovels, brush dirt off their clothes, and head back to their car.</p><p>Klaus watches warily. Cha-Cha slams the trunk shut and he has to flinch away, afraid it might catch his head. He watches as Hazel and Cha-Cha get inside the car without another word; and he watches as the car turns to life and begins to drive away on the trail they came.</p><p>He blinks in confusion, watching the car, and then he looks at Ben as if his brother might have answers. The car keeps driving away, getting further and further until Klaus loses it through the trees, and he is alone save for a ghost and a corpse.</p><p>“I don’t know what they’re doing,” mutters Ben, frustration and helplessness bleeding into his tone. He paces, looking between Klaus and the direction they left. “There’s – there’ll be a place nearby, Klaus, if you can walk-“</p><p>“No,” Klaus croaks, shaking his head slightly. He looks down at the ground, digging the fingers of his good hand into the ground. “No, no, I can’t-“</p><p>“Klaus-“</p><p>“I can’t, Ben,” he repeats. It hurts to talk; his throat is painfully dry. “They’ll – they’ll kill anyone who helps me, and-“ He pauses, lifting a hand to his neck and over the burn in his neck where the tracker sits. “It won’t matter.”</p><p>“They might not come back.”</p><p>“I don’t care.”</p><p>Klaus screws his eyes shut, biting his lip. Using his good hand and his good leg, he pulls himself across the ground until he can lean against a tree, and he brings his knees to his chest. He feels utterly miserable; every movement makes the steady ache of pain spike, and the headache growing behind his eyes only continues to get worse. He is thirsty, and hungry, and has been awake long enough that he can only imagine how quickly the withdrawals will set in; his body already dependant on what Hazel and Cha-Cha are drugging him with.</p><p>He wonders what his family are doing. They think he is dead. Will they mourn? Have a funeral for him? Will they look for his body? Will they even care?</p><p>Hazel and Cha-Cha must be keeping him for a reason – to be able to use him against his siblings later. They won’t kill him. They can’t kill him. He wonders if it’d be a blessing for them to kill him rather than to continue to hurt him.</p><p>He lifts his head, staring at the body and the shallow grave it resides in, the shovels discarded aside and the piles of dirt dug out of the hole beside it. Somewhat reluctantly, Klaus begins to shuffle slowly towards it. He stops at the edge, inhaling sharply as he looks down at the body, closing his eyes briefly. And then he reaches out his good hand, cupping some of the dirt, and he pushes it in to the grave.</p><p> </p><p>###</p><p> </p><p>He doesn’t quite bury the man; with one hand it is hard to do. With the pain, the hunger, the thirst and the withdrawals that settle in quickly, he only manages to just cover the body but not fill the grave in before he passes out beside it.</p><p>He tries to curl in on himself to find some kind of heat, jerks whenever he feels something move on him – a bug, a spider, maybe. He tries to stay awake, really, but he finds it harder and harder to do; or at least remain, for the most part, coherent. He wakes up thinking the tree root beneath his head is the pillow on his bed at the Academy. The silhouette of a tree looming over him turns into his father, standing in the doorway of the mausoleum, and then it turns back into a tree and it takes his sluggish mind several moments to comprehend what happened, where he is and the situation he is in.</p><p>He feels utterly worn thin, body stretched to its limits, and maybe Hazel and Cha-Cha aren’t coming back. Maybe they have left him to die slowly out here in the forest, in the middle of nowhere.</p><p>He doesn’t know how long he spends there. It must be weeks, surely. Months, even. A whole eternity. He might be going insane purely from mental confusion and the gut-wrenching need for water, for drugs, for heat.</p><p>And then there are headlights.</p><p>He opens his eyes to little more than slits, able to see from his position on the floor as a car slowly rolls over the trail between trees, dipping and bouncing and dazzling his eyes. It slows to a stop and two familiar forms get out. He blinks and one moment they are by the car, the other moment they are in front of him.</p><p>Cha-Cha crouches by his face. She presses her fingers to his neck, searching for his rapid pulse. She glances at the attempt he made to bury the body, says something to Hazel that Klaus doesn’t bother trying to listen to.</p><p>This time Hazel comes close, grabbing him and heaving him off the floor.</p><p>Just before he passes out once more, Klaus thinks that he has been upgraded from the trunk of their car to the backseat.</p><p> </p><p>###</p><p> </p><p>When he wakes up again, he is, once more, on the floor. Hazel is in front of him, tapping his cheek none too gently. It takes Klaus several moments to focus on him, and when he does, Hazel grabs his upper arms and yanks him upright. Klaus’ head spins and hits the wall behind him.</p><p>Something presses against his lips and then water spills down his mouth. It jolts him awake and he hurries to swallow it. His shaky hand comes up to curl around the bottle Hazel is holding for him, forcing it up more, greedily downing the whole bottle as swiftly as he can.</p><p>When the bottle is empty, Hazel throws it aside. Klaus slumps back against the wall, relieved at the way his mouth and throat no longer feels torturously dry, and he takes a moment to look around the place.</p><p>He is in another motel room, evidently. The floor beneath him is cold and hard, a pale wood with a carpet near the door and between the two beds, and one of the lights hums in a way that digs beneath his skin. It smells faintly like smoke. Cha-Cha is not there.</p><p>“I’m not cleaning up after you, so if you need to piss, the bathroom’s there,” Hazel says, tone nearly indifferent, slightly uncomfortable. “Leave the door open.”</p><p>Klaus blinks, following his pointing finger to an open door that leads to the bathroom, and then he nods his head. Finally, Hazel sets one more bottle of water next to him, and then he gets up and wanders over to the small television in the room, turning it on.</p><p>Klaus stares at him for several moments before his hands reach out and snatch the other bottle, cradling it against his chest. He goes to twist off the lid before pausing. He doesn’t know when the next time he’ll be given a drink is. If he downs it all now, he might not see another drop for days. Sadly, he sets it back down, but puts it in a protective position between himself and the wall, as if afraid it might be taken from him.</p><p>He pulls his knees to his chest, rests his chin upon them, and stares ahead of himself until he succumbs once more to exhaustion.</p><p> </p><p>###</p><p> </p><p>When he wakes up, the room smells like takeaway. His nose twitches and his mouth waters at the smell. Lifting his head, he sees Cha-Cha is back, and her and Hazel are helping themselves to food. There is chicken, and fries, and a bottle of whiskey that they mix with their own sodas, and Klaus is bitterly reminded of the fact that he hasn’t eaten anything since he got kidnapped.</p><p>His stomach makes a noise in hungry demand and his cheeks flame in embarrassment. Quickly, he looks away from them, turns to face a wall and stares at the cobweb in a corner.</p><p>Something thuds on the floor in front of him. He jumps, turns to look at it, and a few inches from him is a single piece of chicken. He looks up at, sees Cha-Cha’s eyes burn into him for several moments, mocking him silently, and then she looks away again.</p><p>He looks back to the food on the dusty, dirty floor; a piece Cha-Cha threw him, like someone throwing their dog a scrap. His hand dances along the bandage around his throat, like a collar, and the chip beneath his skin, and he stares at the food. Thinks of the germs on the floor.</p><p>But he has eaten from dumpsters before, truly like some street dog, and so his hand dashes out and grabs the food and stuffs it into his mouth before Cha-Cha might take back her decision and throw it in the trash.</p><p> </p><p>###</p><p> </p><p>He tries to ignore the ghosts that are with them. Really, he does, but they are so damn interested in him, even without knowing he can see them. Hazel and Cha-Cha don’t keep people alive, so why is Klaus different? They’re curious, muttering amongst themselves, and a little angry that Klaus gets to live. He just clamps his hands over his ears as best he can and sits, with nothing else to do. Until he needs the bathroom.</p><p>He looks anxiously between Hazel and Cha-Cha and tries to ignore the need to go for as long as he can, until he simply can’t hold it any longer. He doesn’t even know how to get there, though; doesn’t want to put weight on his broken leg, so he can’t walk there. He doesn’t want to get either Hazel or Cha-Cha’s attention; wishes they would just completely forget about him; wishes they weren’t there at all, but he knows that if he waits too long and wets himself, Cha-Cha will be mad and it will be humiliating. He doesn’t think she will get him other clothes, either.</p><p>Each time he goes to move, though, his heart leaps into his throat.</p><p>His eyes burn with distressed tears and his heart pounds furiously against his ribs. He covers his face with his hands, shoulders hunched, and tries to stay quiet when he begins to cry out of pure distress. He feels miserable, and everything hurts, and he is hungry and still thirsty but doesn’t want to run out of water, and he can’t stand or walk, and he doesn’t want the humiliation of having to crawl to the bathroom, and the ghost of the man he half-buried is in the room with the others, now, watching Klaus intently, and he doesn’t know what to do.</p><p>His needs win however, and he bites his tongue and pulls himself into the bathroom. He has to grapple with the bathtub to pull himself upright, balancing on his good leg over the toilet as he relieves himself. His hand shakes as he flushes, then he shuffles on one foot to the sink to lean against it and gaze into the mirror.</p><p>His eyes are shadowed and sunken into his face, and his skin is dirty from being outside. His clothes are too, as is the bandage around his neck and his hair, and his eyes are bloodshot and anxious. The sight of himself makes him want to curl in on himself and he finds himself once more blinking back tears.</p><p>Hesitantly, he returns to the main room, curling up against the wall by his water bottle. He holds it tightly to himself, as if it might ground him while he struggles to keep calm.</p><p>He doesn’t know how long passes until he hears Cha-Cha say his name. His head snaps up, wide-eyes falling on her, and he can’t help but flinch instinctively under her gaze.</p><p>She tosses something at him. It lands and then rolls to his feet. He blinks, then looks back up at her.</p><p>“Count out thirty of those,” she tells him, and with a shaking hand he reaches for the bottle of pills and stares at it. His heart sinks when he reads the label but nonetheless he forces himself to count out the pills. When he is done, he looks up, swallows dryly and croaks out, “o-okay.”</p><p>“Take them,” Cha-Cha says, and though Klaus really expected that, he still freezes. He stares at the pills that he has organised in groups of five to make up thirty in total. He’s done these before, he knows. When he was sixteen, although he hadn’t done this many. He’d been told they make you trip and he couldn’t get his hands on acid and wanted to know what it was like, so he raided the infirmary and found them. He hadn’t been told that the trips with those pills were all bad trips, however, and had spent the entire high paranoid and afraid with imaginary bugs crawling all over him and screams rattling down the hall.</p><p>“You can take them yourself, or I can hold you down and push them down your throat,” Cha-Cha tells him, impatient. Klaus swallows down his reluctance and anxiety, forces his hand to gather up one group of five, and swallows them. He takes the next five, and the next, and keeps going until they are gone, and then he has to stop and drink, his mouth dry once more.</p><p>He wraps his arms around himself, trying to breathe slowly, calmly, but there is nothing good about this situation, nothing safe about it, and nothing is going to be alright no matter how much he tells himself that.</p><p>He hears footsteps and looks up to see Hazel come close; a cloth and roll of duct tape in hand. He crouches, face indifferent as he says, “open your mouth.”</p><p>Klaus’ shoulders fall and he deflates. “Please,” he whispers, though he isn’t entirely sure what he is asking for. “Please-“</p><p>“Open your mouth,” Hazel repeats, and Klaus blinks back tears. When he does, Hazel stuffs the cloth into his mouth, and seals it shut with duct tape that he could peel off, but they all know he won’t. Then he grabs his arms again, lifting him up – Klaus only just manages to grab his water bottle, a stupid fear of losing it rising up – and he drags Klaus towards the closet.</p><p>He knows it is futile to put up a fight, so he doesn’t. He accepts his fate, lets Hazel stuff him into the closet and simply slides to the floor, hugging his knees to his chest, and listens to the lock trapping him inside it.</p><p>Ben slides in with him, saying nothing but sitting opposite him in the tight space. Klaus hugs his water like it might somehow save him from this, from the tightness in his chest when the walls begin to close in on him, or the way spiders begin to crawl through the wooden slats of the closet door and begin to crawl all over him. He shakes his head, tries to dislodge them from where he can feel them in his hair, crawling up the bag of his neck. He tries to shake them off his hands but surely there must be thousands of them, crawling out of the cracks of the walls, out of the floorboards.</p><p>The patterns in the floorboards swirl like an endless void beneath him and the walls around him pulse with breaths and turn into cold stone, and he can hear the tapping of Reginald’s cane down the hall; he can hear himself, the same screams that would tear out of his throat in the mausoleum; can hear Ben’s screams as his Horrors tear him apart.</p><p>Each scream he hears outside the small closet makes his body jerk; muscles seizing and leaving him shaking, body wracked by uncontrollable convulsions that make him grit his teeth, and he clamps his hands over his ears and sobs.</p><p>He tries to open the doors but they are heavy and locked, and he is trapped, and he knows, on some level, that half of this isn’t real, but in the moment it is.</p><p>He had never called the Academy home before, but he longs to go back there desperately; even longs for his family. But they think he is dead, and he has no idea how long it will be until he sees them again.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Babie :(</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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